On sets defining few ordinary lines

DOI10.1007/S00454-013-9518-9zbMATH Open1309.51002OpenAlexW2053849387WikidataQ55953877 ScholiaQ55953877MaRDI QIDQ368773FDOQ368773

Authors Terence Tao, Ben Green 

Publication date 23 September 2013

Published in Discrete \& Computational Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1208.4714

zbMATH Keywords

cubic curvesDirac-Motzkin conjectureorchard-planting problemordinary linesSylvester-Gallai theorem

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Other designs, configurations (05B30) Linear algebraic groups over finite fields (20G40) Incidence structures embeddable into projective geometries (51A45) Configuration theorems in linear incidence geometry (51A20)

Abstract: Let P be a set of n points in the plane, not all on a line. We show that if n is large then there are at least n/2 ordinary lines, that is to say lines passing through exactly two points of P. This confirms, for large n, a conjecture of Dirac and Motzkin. In fact we describe the exact extremisers for this problem, as well as all sets having fewer than n - C ordinary lines for some absolute constant C. We also solve, for large n, the "orchard-planting problem", which asks for the maximum number of lines through exactly 3 points of P. Underlying these results is a structure theorem which states that if P has at most Kn ordinary lines then all but O(K) points of P lie on a cubic curve, if n is sufficiently large depending on K.

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